@megraam wrote:
I have seen these bots in taco, I am rank 48. The story was like this:
1. EA matchmaking was matching proper rank players so it took time: you can see it before global release and there were several threads here and on reddit with complaints "zombies take forever to find a match" etc. etc.
2. Then close to global release EA has changed it and prioritized time over proper rank match: people from taco started matching people from wood and gold, etc. I have experienced it myself, and these were reddit threads about it too.
3. THEN suddenly both problems were miraculously 'solved': you get your rank/league and find it quite fast, at least within 30-40 seconds. This is when bots were introduced.
I should probably clarify some facts:
1) Previous to the launch ranking was indeed taking some time, depending on your rank (higher ranks waited more, lower ranks, not so much). This could range from a few seconds to a few minutes. Things did not change at all until global launch.
2) Immediatelly after global launch, there were huge delays. Players at higher ranks playing plants would not get matched at all and playing zombies took quite a long time and would normally get you matched against really low ranks.
3) As the days went by, the time it took to get matched (for high ranked players) gradually was reduced. The average rank of the opponents also gradually went up. After a week or so, even plants were starting to get matched, though also against lower ranked players.
4) After a few weeks, both zombies and plants were taking around the same time (a few seconds generally, with occasional moments of slowness when it took longer) and getting generally matched against similar ranks +/- 10 (with the occasional exception).
Anyone playing during that time will have observed exactly what I described here. Now, I won't be as conceited as to think that my speculation on what was happening is also a fact, but to me this is the most reasonable and rational explanation of why this happened:
1) Previous to global launch there was a relatively small player base. The player base at high ranking was even smaller, as it's more difficult to get there, which is why the wait times were so long.
2) After the global launch, there was a huge surge of starting players. The game starts you as a plant, so everyone was playing plants. This meant that all the plant matches were being taken up by the lower ranked new players, so anyone of higher rank trying to get a game was out of luck. However, few people were playing zombies so even high ranking zombies would eventually be matched against a lower rank plant.
3) As time went by, players ranked up, increasing the probability of getting a higher ranking when being matched. They also started trying out zombies, levelling up the playing field between zombies and plants.
4) This is where we currently stand, with the active player base increasing every time an event or interesting sale happens. Currently we have the christmas event so you can expect the player base to be more active.
